


The Snow White Maid in the Woods

by Fialleril



Category: Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Norse Religion & Lore
Genre: Alternate Universe - Snow White, Crack, Crack Crossover, Fractured Fairy Tale, Gen, Silly, True Love's Kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-02
Updated: 2014-04-02
Packaged: 2018-01-17 21:32:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1403179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fialleril/pseuds/Fialleril
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prince Charming could not afford to wait for his ponderous horse. Adventure called! He could not be found wanting!</p>
<p>Or, the crack fic where Prince Charming finds a beautiful woman sleeping in the woods, but things do not proceed at all according to the script.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Snow White Maid in the Woods

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as a pretty cracky exercise for my writing group: we were supposed to write one or more of our characters into a fairy tale setting that we drew from a hat. I ended up with Snow White, and this happened. It seemed like a good thing to post on April Fool's Day.

The woods were dark and deep and full of shadows, which was certainly promising. Better than the rolling fields and pleasant dells of the last few hours.

Prince Charming scowled at the world in general, marring his perfect features and depriving the universe of the sight of his gloriously white teeth. Fields and dells were all very well, but as everyone knows, there is no adventure to be found in them, and Charming was a _prince_. He _deserved_ adventure.

But these woods were better. They were decidedly dim, and full of noxious webs, and altogether quite creepy. Very promising indeed.

Charming slowed his horse, Benedict Cumberbatch, to a walk, and reached behind him into the saddle bags for a torch. Through a series of incredibly graceful contortions, he managed to retrieve one, as well as a flint and steel, and lit it in a flourish.

The shadows sprang back with a hiss.

Yes, indeed. A deep dark woods full of adventure.

Charming was not only a prince, but, indeed, he was that most sacred of all princes, the fairy tale hero. It was his destiny, somehow, to find and rescue some horribly disadvantaged girl, who, no doubt, would be revealed as a beautiful princess in disguise. He was quite eager to fulfill his role.

So eager, in fact, that he’d gone out in search of adventure, and he was beginning to be quite vexed. It had been a whole _five hours_ , and so far, adventure had spectacularly failed to happen.

But he could sense that his luck was changing at last. Just ahead, a clearing opened up in the murky undergrowth, and streams of golden light fell like glimmering angel dust across the forest floor.

Charming beamed, and spurred Benedict Cumberbatch on. The horse snorted in contempt, and plodded forward at exactly the same pace.

Prince Charming could not afford to wait for his ponderous horse. Adventure called! He could not be found wanting!

Eagerly, he sprang out of the saddle, nimble and graceful as a swan on the wing. The very air around him sighed in appreciation.

He strode forward nobly toward the clearing, pausing only briefly to check his reflection in the gleaming pommel of his saddle. His hair was perfect, of course.

In the clearing, the streaming light of heaven fell upon a bed of ferns and leaves, a simple natural bower made radiant by the presence of the woman on it.

She was the most astonishingly beautiful woman Charming had ever seen. She was, it was just possible, even more beautiful than himself. The radiant sunlight fell upon her hair, turning it to rivers of liquid gold, cascading over her snow white shoulders and her perfect bosom. He noticed, dimly, that she was dressed in some shining metal, almost like a corselet, but the dress was far less important than the vision of loveliness that wore it.

Surely here, here at last, was his destined maiden, his fair princess, his great deed of fairy tale heroism!

Charming rushed forward, quite forgetting his dignity, not to mention Benedict Cumberbatch, who seemed entirely unmoved by the woman’s loveliness, and was standing at the edge of the clearing, placidly cropping at grass.

But Prince Charming stood now directly over the woman, and looking down into her perfect face, he knew that he could love no other, as long as he lived.

“Oh,” he declaimed lavishly to the shining air, “if only I might wake her, and know her name!”

But of course he could. The dramatics were necessary, naturally, but he was not really in any doubt as to what he should do. True love’s kiss was the prescribed remedy here, as it generally was. And Charming was quite certain that what he felt was love. Truly, it was a numinous feeling.

Choirs of angels sang sweetly, and a whole flock of white doves burst from a nearby tree and rose with a rush of wings into the light, as Prince Charming bent and, with the drama appropriate to such a situation, kissed the beauteous maiden before him.

For a brief, shining moment, everything was perfect. And then Charming reeled back, staggering over his own feet and holding a hand to his stinging cheek.

He grew very still indeed, though, when the sword was pressed against his throat by a snow-white and perfectly steady hand.

“You have five seconds to explain why I should let you live,” said the woman. Her voice was like every perfect sound, all contained in a moment, but her words were no less terrifying for all that.

“But,” sputtered Prince Charming, “are you not a princess? Were you not lying here, as though dead, in this clearing, waiting for true love’s kiss to free you?”

The splendid woman threw her perfect white neck back and laughed, long and loud.

“I am Freyja,” she said, terrible in her beauty. “And I think, if you were not so pathetic, I would kill you where you stand. As it is, it seems a waste.” Here she lowered her sword, casting him a disdainful glance, so that he almost felt insulted that she had decided to let him live.

“Can’t a girl so much as take a nap in the woods without being pestered by buffoons in tights?” she growled, addressing her ire at Benedict Cumberbatch, as the most likely candidate for intelligence in the clearing. The horse snorted, and went right on eating grass.

Freyja sighed dramatically and turned with a terrible smile back to Prince Charming.

“So,” she said sweetly. “You want adventure. You want a fairy tale. You want true love’s kiss.”

“Oh yes,” said Charming rapturously. “Doesn’t everyone?”

Freyja favored him with a look of profound disgust, but it turned quickly to an overly saccharine smile, which should have been his cue to start running. But Charming had never been especially good at reading signals from women.

“Well,” said Freyja slowly, “if that’s what you want, I shall make sure it’s what you have.”

Charming looked at her with adoration. “Anything for you, beautiful Freyja!” he breathed, and leaned in for True Love’s Kiss.

But Freyja’s lips met his forehead, not his mouth. Charming had no chance to complain as he fell instantly into a deep slumber, crumbling with a smile to the ground.

Freyja hummed to herself as she arranged his limbs on the bower and left him to await the coming of his true love, whoever that might be. Then she looked across the clearing at Benedict Cumberbatch, who had moved on to munching at clover.

“You may as well stop that now,” she called. “You’ve had your fun.”

“Spoilsport,” said Loki petulantly, and the horse was replaced by a fresh-faced young woman. “Oh well,” she said, “I suppose it’s for the best. Benedict Cumberbatch is a dreadful name anyway.”

**Author's Note:**

> As for the horse's name, well: I asked my writing group for a pompous sounding name, and someone yelled out "Benedict Cumberbatch!" It was too good to pass up.


End file.
